For real on bike lanes

County plan puts cycling projects in transportation mix

Feb. 18, 2012

The bike path on Kalberer Road west of Salibury Road in West Lafayette. According to the 2040 transportation plan, the Area Plan Commission would like to add 34.6 miles to the 17.1 miles of existing bike lanes and paths in Tippecanoe County. (By Dave Bangert/Journal & Courier)

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THE FIRST ROUND

Here’s a list of streets targeted for immediate action to encourage cycling in Tippecanoe County’s proposed long-range transportation plan, which is going through its fifth revision since 1979.

SHARED ROAD SIGNAGE• South Ninth, from County Road 800 to County Road 510• Wea School Road, from Concord south• Lindberg Road, from McCormick to Klondike roads and from Klondike Road west• Klondike Road, from Lindberg Road south• Newman Road/County Road 300 West, from U.S. 231 to South River Road• Veterans Memorial Parkway, U.S. 231 to Kirkpatrick Ditch and U.S. 52 to Indiana 26• Twyckenham Boulevard/Brady Lane, from Ninth Street to U.S. 52

Even if you're serious about cycling, chances are you have nothing on Kathy Schroth.

"Are you here to ride?" the West Lafayette cyclist asks as she rolls up in the parking lot of Lilly Nature Center at the Celery Bog in West Lafayette, Thursday afternoon's launch for a set of "show and go" rides sponsored by the Wabash River Cycle Club. She rides nearly every day -- "as long as the road is clear. If I ride, it's a good day."

I wish I could crank out 20 or 30 miles, too, but not today, I say. I just have a question and I heard I could count on finding you here: What do you think about the fact that, for the first time, planners are adding bicycle projects -- an assortment of bike lanes, trails, signs and the like -- to Tippecanoe County's long-range transportation plan?

With 8,000 miles in the saddle last year, Schroth has about as big a stake as anyone in the plan being rolled out by the county's Area Plan Commission this month -- one that will be up for approval this summer and that envisions 39 cycling-related projects of varying degrees through 2040.

"Really?" she says as much as asks. "Good. As long as they're going to be real about it."

This community has come up generally short when it comes to being for real about promoting cycling, whether for daily commuting or for recreation. Seeing actual cycling and pedestrian projects in with upgrades best suited for the family car in the Area Plan Commission's draft of the 2040 transportation plan is no small thing.

Past attempts

Greater Lafayette actually qualified as a Bicycle Friendly Community about a dozen years ago. Signs went up and everything. The designation was greeted by scattered, yeah-right scoffing by cyclists who only wished it was a fact and honks by random drivers who wanted to know who the dude in the black shorts and Share The Road jersey thought he was anyway.

Doug Poad, a county planner, said the signs came down after the League of American Bicyclists' application for the program thickened.

"We weren't even close to qualifying," Poad said. "We were only hitting on, I don't know, one of 20 cylinders."

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And community inertia faded. Typical.

The first round of amends in the transportation plan -- things that can be done fairly easily, inexpensively and right now -- isn't fancy.

"It's really just signs and some paint," Poad said of the list of shared-road signage and bike lane markings included under "immediate action plan."

"Which is why they're there," said John Thomas, a county planner who also worked on the cycling plan.

Beyond that, Thomas and Poad say they see more substantial work on bike trails and safety features on or along heavily traveled roads in five, 10 or 20 years.

Catching the pack

"We're not recommending anything really sophisticated," Thomas said, citing examples of towns way ahead of the planning curve when it comes to biking to work, biking to school, and biking for pleasure and exercise.

"We'll get there at some point," Thomas said. "This is really the first entrée, trying to put bikes and other modes of transportation into the mix, so we're not just talking about cars and trucks."

The planners have a lot of fancy words -- arterials, transportation modes, inter-connectivity -- for what's in the works to add 34.6 miles to the paltry 17.1 miles of existing bike lanes and bike paths in Tippecanoe County.

All I heard was: Escape routes.

The most challenging part of road biking in Greater Lafayette is getting out of town. Given a choice, you'd rather ride into the wind early and have the breeze at your back on the way home. That means having escape routes in all directions -- south on 18th Street, north on North Ninth Street Road or Salisbury Street, east on Greenbush Street to Eisenhower Road, west on U.S. 231 to South River Road. Every serious recreational cyclist has a collection of escape routes.

In the long run, better escape routes in town for serious riders also mean better roads for people just looking to get out and around the neighborhood, out to parks, to the grocery store, to work and back, and to schools.

The cost, as imagined in the county's new transportation plan, would be 5 percent to 10 percent of money the county gets from the federal highway trust, Thomas said. In recent years, the county has received about $4 million annually. That would put $200,000 to $400,000 toward cycling and a separate list of ambitious pedestrian projects included in the county's draft transportation plan. (That's provided money remains in the federal budget -- a slim proposition right now, given that much of it has been offered to the chopping block.)

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Here's the thing: If Greater Lafayette is going to put cash and effort into bike lanes and other share-the-road amenities -- even if it all comes down to just painting new lines on the streets -- the community needs to be in it for the long haul. And it needs to be in it for real, and not simply walk away satisfied after signs go up.

"If they're going to have these bike lanes, they have to be serious about keeping the recycling and trash and limbs and parked cars out," Schroth says. "Or they'll just be a hazard. Make them useable. Or what's the point?"

The point for now, though, is that this is a good start by county planners to offer more than lip service or vague notions about access to decent cycling and walking. This plan pins down actual projects. It's a start.

"Sure you don't want to ride?" Schroth asks, before clicking the cleats of her black Sidi Genius 5 shoes into clipless pedals. She's the only one on this show-and-go ride on a cool, blustery Thursday afternoon. She says she could go for some help in the wind.

Again, I'd love to, I tell her. But I'm on the clock. (Nice excuse, since I doubt I'm in shape this early in the season to keep up the likes of her, anyway.) And she's off, finding her escape route from the Celery Bog, right on Lindberg Road and into the wind for 30 or so toward another 8,000 miles this year.

A year or two from now, that escape route would be a real bike lane. That's progress in my book.

Bangert is a columnist with the J&C. Contact him at dbangert@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter @davebangert.